


When It's All Over (It's Never Over)

by ohmarqueliot



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Drinking to forget your problems, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Partying, Post-Mind control, Post-Trauma, canon compliant (theoretically based on S4 spoilers), post-S3, to be clear this includes Penny23 and mentions of Penny40
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 18:32:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15588111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmarqueliot/pseuds/ohmarqueliot
Summary: The group celebrates once everyone has their memories back and the Monster is defeated. Eliot is not okay.





	When It's All Over (It's Never Over)

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on various vague spoilers for S4 and just the thought of how messed up it's going to be for Eliot if (when, it's definitely when) the Monster is defeated.

Being friends with a famous DJ certainly had its advantages.

Memories restored and the Monster freshly defeated, the gang had all gathered together for the first time in almost a year. Still cautious of the Librarians who were looking for them, they’d left behind their new homes and found a bar that also leased out rooms. Penny had paid the owner an exorbitant amount to take all of the rooms and close for a ‘private function’, but had in the process negotiated their drinks for the night to be included.

Quentin had always had a feeling that Penny cared a lot more for their haphazard group of friends than he ever let on, but New Penny didn’t seem to have quite the same disdain for feelings that OG Penny did. He was definitely sure that 23 seemed to hate him a little less, but maybe that was just Julia 23’s influence.

Catching Julia’s eye from where she sat at the bar with Kady and Alice, he smiled at her warmly. It felt good to have everyone back together. Brian’s life had been a good one, a happy one, but it had been lacking something he’d never quite understood. All of these people meant a different kind of special to him, and he felt like he was finally _home._ And if today home was a dingy bar in the middle of nowhere, then so be it.

Home was the people who he protected, who protected him. Home was the High King of Fillory, who sat beside him on the bench seat in the corner with her bare legs strewn across his lap. Home was the man he’d spent his life with, sitting on his other side, the length of his thigh pressing against his, a drink in one hand and his other resting on Margo’s ankle as it sat in his lap. Absent-mindedly, he dropped his free hand over Eliot’s, finding comfort in the warm familiarity of his skin. Eliot’s hand moved slightly to twist their fingers together and Quentin allowed himself a small sigh of relief. Whatever their relationship was had never really been defined, never really needed to be, but he’d been more than a little afraid that it would be changed by their time apart… Or rather, their recent time together…

Margo shifted her leg slightly, and Quentin realised he’d been squeezing Eliot’s hand tighter and tighter. Loosening it but not letting go, he looked to her with apology but she wasn’t looking at him. Neither was Eliot – they were both focused on Penny as he detailed his most recent tour across Europe. Well, he said most recent, but if all of the others were figments of the false past that Dean Fogg had given him, then did they really count?

Giving himself a mental shake, he forced himself out of his own thoughts and tried to stay present. There was still more to do – the Library still had magic in a chokehold, for one, and they couldn’t work on freeing Penny until that had been dealt with – but that was tomorrow’s problem. Tonight, they were celebrating. Tonight, they –

“Shots!”

Yes, that.

“About time.” Pulling her legs off of his lap, Margo straightened up and pushed their empty glasses to the side of the small table in front of them to make room for the tray of shots that Josh had brought over. Setting down the tray, Josh pulled up a chair and sat on it backwards, passing a shot glass to Penny. Without letting go of Eliot’s hand, Quentin took one from Margo and passed it across to him before accepting one for himself, biting back a grimace when a familiar smell hit his nostrils. He’d had never had a good experience with tequila.

He'd also never become a different person for six months or been tortured by one of his best friends.

  
_No,_ he thought firmly. Someone who _looked_ like one of his best friends. Feeling concerned, he watched as Eliot downed his shot with practiced efficiency and then gestured for Josh to hand the bottle over. Refilling it to the top, he picked up the shot glass again and, glancing at Quentin and then his full shot, raised his glass in a salute. “Catch up, Coldwater,” he said with a smirk that almost didn’t look quite right. He opened his mouth to say something, to beg him to share, to ask, _‘Are you sure you’re okay?’_ but was silenced by the pointed look Eliot sent towards the drink in his hand and a tightening of his fingers around the other. With a roll of his eyes and a sigh, he clinked his glass against Eliot’s and downed the tequila.

“Well _I_ threw some pretty great parties myself,” Margo said, pouring another round for everybody.

“And I saw the aftermath of some of those,” Josh added, as though his brag was even close to the same. “Some pretty messy car rides.”

“Yeah, you guys don’t know messy,” Eliot said dryly. It took him a moment to realise what he meant, and then Quentin felt a wave of nausea wash over him at the vivid memory of being covered in blood, the Monster wearing Eliot’s face covered in blood, the poor passerby who the Monster had been ‘practicing’ his human experiences on covered in blood.

“Fuck, Eliot,” he murmured, but Eliot only squeezed his hand in response and then let it go, leaning over him to grab the tequila from Margo and drinking straight from the bottle.

He couldn’t blame him for being a bit fucked up – or more than a bit – but he didn’t know how to deal with this Eliot. They’d been here before, and it hadn’t gone well. He didn’t know what to do to make things better, especially when he was adamant that it was fine, he was fine, everything was _fine, Q, leave it alone._

“And on that note,” Penny said with entirely too much cheer, pushing himself to his feet and pulling his phone out of his pocket. Heading over to the bar, he disappeared from one side and then appeared on the other. A few seconds later the music changed from quiet, background noise to something loud and vaguely familiar. Turning and seeing their eyes on him, he shrugged. “I thought this was supposed to be a party,” he yelled over the music.

“I’ll show you a party,” Margo said, grinning. Tossing back the rest of her drink, she patted Quentin firmly on the leg and then stood up, grabbing Josh’s hand and pulling him onto the small open area that passed for a dance floor. Moments later Julia joined them, pulling a laughing Kady and a reluctant but smiling Alice with her.

It was beyond good to see them happy. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d seen them all smile or laugh or just plain not be miserable. He realised he was smiling himself and leaned back in his seat, tensing slightly when his shoulders hit something that wasn’t the back of the padded bench. Glancing sideways, he watched Eliot watching their friends as his arm settled properly around his shoulders. “It’s good, isn’t it?” he said quietly.

Slowly, he relaxed into Eliot, letting him pull him back against his chest, twining his fingers with the hand that dangled over his chest. He thought of their days back at Brakebills, where it was not uncommon to see Eliot and Margo in a similar pose as they watched the parties they’d orchestrated happen around them. He huffed a laugh at the thought that he was the one now in a casually affectionate position on the sidelines. He didn’t mind – preferred it, actually – particularly if he could contribute to a happy moment after everything they’d been through.

“It is. I haven’t seen Jules laugh like that since… well, probably since we tried to get into Bacchus’s party.” He smiled, remembering how ridiculous he felt that night and how much he didn’t care. He wanted to feel like that again, wanted to get up and dance and be carefree. He also wanted to be there for Eliot. Leaning further into him, he dropped his voice. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Eliot’s arm tightened around him, his forearm pressing against his neck. “If you ask me that one more time –“

“Okay, okay,” he said defensively, and Eliot loosened his grip, pressing his lips to the side of his head before taking another long draw from the bottle. “Give me that,” Quentin said, taking the tequila and taking a swig, ignoring the burn in his throat.

“Finally,” Eliot said exasperatedly, smiling at him with considerably more warmth. “But we can do better.” Nudging Quentin off of him so he could stand up, he walked over to the bar. Lifting himself up onto it, he swung his legs around and dropped down on the other side. Grabbing a couple of bottles, he paused for a moment before taking one more. Climbing over the bar the same way, he brought the bottles over and then made one more trip, returning with a cocktail shaker and a pair of martini glasses. “Trust me,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows absurdly.

This Eliot was more familiar – he knew how to deal with this Eliot. He sighed exaggeratedly. “Do I ever have a choice?”

“No. You do not.”

To be fair, it was a rare occasion where Eliot made a bad cocktail, and this was no exception. They were a few drinks down when Margo came back to join them, glass in hand. Her smile was wide and her cheeks flushed from dancing. “Scootch over, Professor,” she said, sitting down in the nonexistent gap between the two of them and squirming until Quentin shifted over enough to give her room to sit properly. She didn’t let him go far though, leaning back into Eliot like he had been earlier and throwing her legs over his again.

“Am I seriously just your foot rest now?” he asked, a bit annoyed with himself that he couldn’t find it in him to care. But also a little happy that he didn’t care. Again, it was the casual affection that he craved, and he kind of lived for it.

“Oh, Q,” Margo said, reaching up to caress his cheek before leaning over to pour the remainder of the cocktail that was left in the shaker into her glass. “You just have to accept that you’re comfortable and learn to live with it. This is your life now.”

“You don’t see me complaining,” Eliot pointed out, wrapping his arm around her and sinking back against the cushions.

“Yeah, you two are something else.”

Margo put her hand over her heart, smiling with gratitude. “Thank you,” she said solemnly.

With Margo joining them, Eliot seemed to relax a little more, his dark-dark humour lifting into his usual dark humour. When she steered the conversation into lighter topics, Quentin went willingly, and felt himself getting swept up in the mood of the party. For a while he tried to match the other two drink for drink, but he knew that both of the others had a higher tolerance than he did and he made himself slow down. Eliot’s tolerance was something else, and that’s what he told himself when he downed drink after drink, taking a draw of this and a swig of that as he mixed cocktails for the three of them. He wanted normal Eliot, and this was who that was. Right?

Eventually the conversation turned to Fillory, and Eliot wondered aloud how Fen was coping with Tick and the others. “I’m not worried,” Margo said with a shrug. “That girl’s got backbone.”

Quentin hadn’t spent a great deal of time with Fen, but he believed it. “I wonder if Rafe and Abigail are married yet.” He still couldn’t quite believe that Margo had won the election for High King with her support of bestiality but hey, whatever worked.

Eliot snorted into his drink, spilling half of it over himself and choking on the rest. Margo thumped him firmly on the back until his coughing turned into giggles. “Care to share with the class?”

“I just – oh, fuck,” he said, wiping at his eyes. “It just made me think of Fray and… shit, what was his name? Humbleclaw? No, Humbledrum. Oh fuck, Humbledrum.” He collapsed into laughter again, burying his face against Margo’s shoulder. “Do you think my not-daughter is married to Humbledrum the bear yet?” he asked, barely managing to get the words out in his hysteria.

“Oh, El,” she said sagely, patting him gently on the shoulder. “I sure hope so.”

Not really wanting to think too hard about how the mechanics of that worked – Fray was a small girl and he hadn’t met Humbledrum, but brown bears were _big –_ Quentin held out his glass for a refill, not complaining when Margo jumped to the opportunity. Tilting her head to the side as she thought, she poured in a splash of this and a dash of that into his glass until it was full, stirring it with her finger and then popping said finger into her mouth. She pressed her lips together thoughtfully and then, with a shrug and a nod, passed his glass back to him.

Well, it didn’t taste _bad_ exactly, but fuck it was strong.

“ _Quentin!”_

Julia appeared before him, her grinning face swimming in front of his. His hand was in hers before he could figure out how it got there, and she tugged on it incessantly. “Come on, Q, come and dance with us!”

God, but he wanted to. He wanted to let go and just enjoy this, to celebrate the fact that they were here and they were together and they could figure out all of the rest tomorrow. He also wanted to be there for Eliot, whether he was wallowing or deflecting.

Caught in his indecision, he looked to Eliot as he dissolved into another fit of giggles. “Can you imagine them dancing at their wedding?” he gasped. “Holy fuck.”

Quentin hesitated, simultaneously feeling glad to see Eliot laugh so wholeheartedly and feeling a sudden concern over just how much more the other man had drunk than him. Margo leaned forward, getting in between them and catching his focus. “Go on,” she said quietly, wrapping her hand around his as it held his drink, pushing it towards his mouth. He didn’t resist her, but wished he had when she didn’t relax her grip until the remainder of his drink was down his throat, almost choking him and making his eyes water. With a smirk that wasn’t as teasing as he expected, she took the glass from him and held it out for Penny, who had dropped into one of the chairs on the other side of the table. Turning back toward him, she kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Q. I got this.”

If anyone knew how to look after Eliot, it was Margo. Letting Julia pull him to his feet, he followed her across to the others, glancing over his shoulder to see Eliot leaning into Margo, still laughing presumably at the idea of Fray marrying a bear. Despite his lingering concern, it made him feel good to see a smile on Eliot’s face.

And on Julia’s. And Alice’s. Damn, it felt good to smile himself, and laugh, and dance. His life as Brian had been fine, sure, but it hadn’t been whole, and for the first time in forever he let go of all of the panic and pain and just let himself be in the moment. He spun Alice under his arm, laughed at Josh’s overzealous dance moves and then copied them. He belted out the words to a song that he only knew the chorus of with Kady, not finding it in him to care that his voice couldn’t hold a candle to hers. Having another shot, he felt the music and the alcohol buzzing through him and knew that he could do anything. Together, they could all do anything. First rescuing magic from the Library, then finding a way to save Penny, and then… anything they wanted. 

A hand closed around his and he blinked until Eliot’s face came into focus, his eyes drunk and mischievous. “Dance with me,” he said suggestively, his arm slipping around his waist, and Quentin laughed, wrapping his arm around his shoulder and holding close. He expected to be taken on a dramatic turn around the small dance floor, but didn’t complain when Eliot slowed their pace, moving gently back and forth completely out of time from the music. With a satisfied sigh, Quentin rested his head against Eliot’s chest, feeling each breath through his whole body, giving himself over completely to how good it felt just to be held.

He wasn’t aware exactly when their slow dancing turned to barely a sway or when it stopped all together, but he felt precisely the moment when Eliot’s shoulders stiffened beneath his touch. His hand, still holding his and resting against his chest, squeezed tightly and he let out a long, shuddering breath. Alarmed, Quentin pulled back, his eyes searching Eliot’s face in the darkness, and the anguish he saw there felt like a fist around his heart. “Eliot?”

“I’m so sorry,” he said hoarsely, clutching his hand tighter. “All of the things I did…”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Quentin said quickly, pushing his rising dread down. “You’re not apologising for this. It wasn’t you.” His mind betrayed his words, showing him another Eliot, his eyes flashing red, smiling with a childlike glee at the chaos he was creating. His thoughts jumped from one terrible moment to another. Fear, pain, and blood – God, so much blood. He couldn’t remember a terror quite like the one he’d felt as Brian, faced with the idea of magic for the first time and all of the vicious things that a creature with no morals, no ethics, no remorse could do with it.

He suddenly felt sick.

Something must have shown on his face, for Eliot’s face crumpled. “I don’t know how you can even look at me, let alone –“ He cut himself off, trying to pull away.

“El – no, stop.” Overcome with a protective fierceness, he reacted quickly, wrapping his arm around Eliot’s waist to keep him close. Eliot still struggled, so he dropped his hand and cupped his head instead, making him stay put and forcing him to look at him. He’d only seen him cry a handful of times and it gutted him every time without fail. “It wasn’t you,” he said firmly, needing to make sure that he believed him. Eliot made one more half-hearted attempt to pull away but Quentin wasn’t having it. Eventually the fight seemed to go out of him and he sunk into Quentin’s arms, pressing his face against his neck. “I never once saw you in it,” he told him quietly, holding him tightly and hoping he felt it. “None of this is your fault. There was nothing you could do.”

Eliot made a choked noise against his shoulder. “But what if there was? I was… I was awake the whole time.”

 _Oh, fuck._ Quentin opened his mouth but couldn’t find any words. “Eliot…”

Eliot continued without a thought to the horror unfolding inside Quentin. “Everything it felt, everything it saw, I saw. I felt. What it did to you, Quentin… What I did to you…” He stopped with a gasp, his hands flexing against his back, fisting in the back of his shirt.

There was a lump in his throat as large as the fear he still carried with him from what had happened, and he did his best to swallow it down. “It wasn’t you,” he repeated. “Listen to me. You weren’t in control.”

“I wasn’t strong enough to stop it.” Eliot started to tremble, and Quentin pressed his lips together, trying to keep his own emotions in check. It wouldn’t help anyone for him to fall apart now, no matter how much his heart was breaking at the hopelessness in Eliot’s voice. “I wasn’t strong enough.”

“Okay, lover boys.” Margo’s voice from right beside them made Quentin jump, and Eliot stumbled in his arms. Quentin shifted his grip and looked up at her, relief flooding him at her interruption closely followed by guilt that that had been his first reaction. He knew without a doubt, though, that he was in no way equipped to handle this conversation alone, especially with his head swimming the way it was. “Time for bed.”

Eliot groaned, lifting his head and straightening up slightly. “I’m fine,” he protested, squinting despite the dim lighting, scowling at the suggestion that he wasn’t.

“I’m not,” Quentin said quickly, grasping at the opportunity. “I think I… I drank too much… You’ll help me, won’t you?” Belatedly, he swayed on his feet, his actual drunkenness betraying him when he overshot and almost fell into Margo.

“Let’s get our boy to bed,” Eliot said to Margo, his previous despair apparently forgotten for now as he slung his arm around Quentin’s waist to hold him up and completely oblivious to the fact that it was the other way around. Margo held onto Quentin’s arm for a few steps before slinking around to Eliot’s other side and pulling his arm around her shoulders.

Somehow, they managed to get up to the second floor where the rooms were, although the single flight of stairs felt like at least five. Margo had a key to the first room on the left, and Quentin supported Eliot while she unlocked the door, flicked on a light and then held the door open for them. Quentin spared the room a quick glance – TV, tiny couch, mini bar, door that presumably led to the bathroom – before heading straight to the bed and depositing Eliot onto it. He started to straighten up, wondering if he should leave but knowing one hundred percent that he didn’t want to. Eliot’s hand found his wrist and gripped it tightly, tugging him toward the bed and Quentin looked up to Margo, questioning her silently.

“Looks like it’s the three of us again,” she said with a shrug as she flicked on the lamp beside the bed and then turned off the main lights, and the grateful look she sent him told him that there was no sting behind her words.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, straightening up and trying to pull his wrist free. Eliot groaned dramatically in protest and he covered his hand with his own. “I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, massaging Eliot’s fingers until they loosened. Eliot rolled onto his back, mumbling something, and Quentin took the opportunity to kick off his shoes. He wasn’t sure where the line was when he was getting in bed with both Eliot and Margo, but hated the idea of sleeping in his clothes, so when Margo stepped out of her skirt and then pulled her bra out from underneath her top in one practiced movement he thought, _fuck it._ Pulling his shirt over his head, he undid his belt and pushed his jeans down his legs, somehow managing to stay upright in the process. Tugging at his underwear to make sure it covered everything, he stepped up to the bed and pulled Eliot’s shoes off while Margo made quick work of his tie.

Eliot didn’t fight them but the floppiness of his body was just as bad, so he held Eliot upright while Margo pulled his vest and then his shirt off, and the two of them tugged his jeans down his legs. It was harder than he’d thought to get the blanket out from underneath him, and then, when they were finally done, Eliot seemed to decide he could work his own body again, stretching his legs out and then curling up on his side. Margo sighed heavily, shaking her head at the man in the bed. “Fucking asshole.”

He wanted to laugh but he also wanted to cry, so he did neither, waiting until Margo was in bed, her head resting on Eliot’s outstretched arm, before switching off the lamp and then crawling in with them. His hand reached out in the darkness, felt Eliot’s arm, then dropped it to rest on his waist. Eliot’s arm shifted, taking his hand in his and pulling his arm around him, their fingers twisting together tightly. His fingers pressed against Eliot’s stomach, the back of his hand against Margo’s. He shifted closer, curling around Eliot from behind, feeling a little overwhelmed by the feelings this closeness brought out in him. Eliot squirmed a little, trying to get closer to both Margo and Quentin at the same time, and he found himself feeling the same way. Quentin kissed the back of his shoulder, pressing his face against his warm skin, wishing with every part of him that this could be easier. “You’re okay,” he whispered. “You’re safe. We’ve got you.”

It wasn’t long at all before Eliot’s breathing evened out, but it wasn’t so easy for him. Eventually he adjusted to the dark room and he caught Margo’s eye over Eliot’s shoulder. Unsurprised to see her still awake, he propped himself up on his elbow to see her better, trying and failing to find words to express the true expanse of his feelings. He wasn’t sure how much she’d heard earlier but knew that he had to tell her either way. For Eliot’s sake, and for hers. And for his. “He remembers everything,” he said quietly, not wanting to wake him. “He was awake the whole time.”

With only Margo as his witness, he let himself feel the full extent of the horror that he’d not wanted Eliot to see earlier. He hadn’t lied when he’d said that he hadn’t associated the Eliot that he knew and loved with the Monster who had terrorised and tortured anyone who had gotten in his way, himself included. No, he was terrified at the thought of what being a part of such a thing would do to Eliot. His body being forced to do terrible things against his will, hunting and hurting his friends, and not being able to do a thing to stop it. He didn’t care what Eliot thought – being awake didn’t mean he should have been able to fight back from the inside. He didn’t blame him in the slightest; it hadn’t even occurred to him to think it was his fault. He’d been a prisoner trapped in his own mind, witness to a firsthand account of what it truly felt like to be a monster.

He thought about how it would feel, to have something controlling his actions, forcing him to hurt Eliot, making him feel the pleasure it took in it. He felt like he was going to be sick.

How could anyone stay sane after that?

Margo’s eyes glittered in the light coming in through a crack in the curtain from the street. “He wouldn’t talk about it before now. Fucking hell.” She turned her head into Eliot’s chest, took a few deep breathes, then looked back up to Quentin. “No wonder he’s been a wreck.”

His heart broke a little at the way her bottom lip trembled. “What do we do?” He had no idea how to deal with this. Eliot wasn’t the kind of person to talk a problem out and be done with it – not that this was the kind of thing that would work on anyway. He felt so lost as to how to help him.

“We do better,” Margo said firmly, and he felt sure that she was referring to the last time Eliot had lost himself after a trauma. After Mike. Fillory had saved him then, but this time it was up to them. “We _be_ better. We never, _ever_ give up on him.” The fierce protection in her voice solidified his resolve. “We love him. No matter what.”

“No matter what,” he agreed, his voice thick. He felt a touch to his shoulder that turned into a squeeze, firmer than he expected, and he suspected that it was as much for her as it was for him. He wanted to return the support but didn’t want to let go of Eliot’s hand. “Margo,” he started, but couldn’t think of words strong enough to broach the depth of his fear and heartache.

“I know,” she said quietly, giving him another squeeze before returning her hand to Eliot’s shoulder. He nodded, taking a deep, shuddering breath before sinking back onto the pillow.

Sleep was a long time coming.


End file.
